Voting booths provide an area of privacy for those exercising the right to vote. Whether the vote is for electing an individual to a position of leadership, or deciding whether to tax cigarettes, the right to vote is a most private matter. For this reason, voting booths of most every configuration can be found; all with a purpose of providing an area of privacy for the individual exercising their freedom to vote. For instance, stand alone units are well known wherein curtains are hung around the individual for privacy. More elaborate booths might have computer terminals built into the stands.
Most every voting booth is portable as they are used only temporarily. The voting process is performed on a predefined date, and depending on the type of election, might require assembly once, twice or multiple times per year. Due to the amount of people that are involved in voting, a school or church having a large area is typically employed. For instance, a school cafeteria may be employed wherein portable stands are assembled and made available for the voting public. Without such devices the election process would fail to render the actual beliefs of the voters.
There are numerous types of voting booths, each having a configuration that permits various degrees of privacy. One of the problems with the currently available portable voting booths is their inability to store critical materials necessary for a particular election. This includes items such as the ballots that will be employed by the voting public as well as the ballots after they have been cast. For the integrity of the election process, the ballots must be accounted for both before and after the vote, and the voting booth must maintain a minimum of privacy so that an individual does not feel obligated to vote in any manner that is contrary to their own belief.
One shortcoming associated with current systems relates to voter privacy. Current systems require the voter to mark His/Her ballot in a voting booth, and thereafter feed the ballot into the ballot scanner/ballot counter/ballot tabulator which is kept in a different location. Voters often view the movement required to transfer the ballot from location to location as a threat to voter privacy. Often paper folders or the like are given to voters in an attempt to conceal the marked ballot. However, the marked ballot must ultimately be revealed to bystanders when fed into the tabulating machine. Thus, there remains a need in the art for a voting booth which integrates a ballot vote marking table, optical ballot scan counter, and ballot box within one location to eliminate the need for transferring a marked ballot to a different location.
Another shortcoming associated with current systems relates to transportation and the associated accounting of voting materials to minimize voter fraud. Transportation of booths, scanners, ballots and the like necessarily requires the equipment to be surrendered to others, increasing the chance of fraudulent voting. Tracking the equipment becomes a logistical nightmare as the equipment is transferred to transportation to different locations starting from a warehouse to the election voting places like schools, churches, etc., carrying all the important accessories for voting. Ballots and the like may easily be stolen for ballot box stuffing. Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a voting booth system suitable for securing all required voting supplies under seal while the voting booth is in transit or storage. The voting booth system should also include electronic real time tracking of the voting booth and any voting supplies or equipment stored within the voting booth. The voting booth may include more than one tracking system to provide redundancy for added security or monitoring by more than one agency.
Yet another shortcoming associated with the prior art relates to the provision of instructions to voters. Presently, voting booths have instructions for voting in the form of a paper (instruction sheet) that is typically posted in a plastic sleeve along one wall of the carrel portion of the voting booth. Voters often take these sheets to confuse subsequent voters or occasional last minute instructions need to be added to the list. Thus, there is a need in the election industry to provide voting instruction using a LCD display screen which provides instruction in a more user friendly format that is difficult to alter or take, and may be updated as required from a central or local database.
Thus, what is needed in the art is a multi-station voting booth system that is easily stored, transported, erected, and can be used to secure pre- and post-voting materials.